THERE IS NO DEBATING some issues: abortion, the death penalty, the Vietnam
War. No amount of argument or evidence will persuade those who hold one view
to change their minds to the opposite position.

Opponents simply start from
different premises, and it is impossible to reconcile the differences. A
fetus is either a separate, unique human being deserving of the same
protection the Constitution affords every other person, or it is a dependent
mass of cells within a woman's body over which she has total control -- and
so on. The debaters simply talk past each other, with no hope of moving
their opponents.

The impeachment of President Clinton is that kind of issue. Few minds will
change as members of the House of Representatives debate articles of
impeachment this week, because the two sides aren't talking about the same
set of facts.

One side believes that the president of the United States
committed perjury and obstructed justice in order to cover up evidence that
he solicited sexual favors from subordinates in the workplace. The other
side believes that the president simply tried to conceal information about a
private, consensual relationship that, no matter how tawdry, ought to be no
one's business but his own. It is as if the two sides are describing
entirely different circumstances.

How can perceptions of the same events be so different, indeed almost
diametrically opposed? It is because these perceptions reflect two nearly
opposite sets of moral presumptions. Those who favor impeachment believe
that the president broke the law, period. The law itself, they believe, is
unambiguous.

The oath administered before a defendant testifies in a civil
or criminal proceeding commits the defendant to tell "the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth," as clear and complete a directive as
imaginable. If a defendant explicitly lies or says he doesn't remember
something when he does, he has violated the oath. If he encourages others to
lie as well, he has compounded his crime.

But those who oppose impeachment adopt a far more malleable view of the
law ---- civil, criminal and moral. The law itself is not fixed but relative.

Whether someone has truly broken the law depends not solely on what the law
says but, more importantly, what the accused's motives were and what other
circumstances might have mitigated the actions of the accused. In this view,
Bill Clinton lied under oath, but his lie was justified because it was about
sex.

To paraphrase historian Arthur Schlesinger, who testified on behalf of
the president: Everyone lies about sex. The moral relativists have gone
beyond the admonition "He who is without sin cast the first stone" to insist
that since we are all sinners, sin itself no longer exists.

Although there may be some ambivalence about these matters among some
people, which is why Democrats have embraced censure as an alternative
"punishment" of the president, in fact, a chasm exists between the two
sides. Censure, after all, carries no penalty -- a non-punishment for a
non-crime.

The polls suggest that most Americans take the moral relativists' view,
which should hardly be surprising given the state of American culture today.
It is no accident that the United States suffers one of the highest divorce
rates, out-of-wedlock birth rates and violent-crime rates in the world. We
have long ago given up on moral absolutes.

The vote to impeach President Clinton on Thursday will not change any
minds. What it will do is put the authority of one democratic institution on
the side of one or the other in the great cultural divide that already
exists among the people. More important than what this vote will decide
about the fate of Bill Clinton is what influence it will have on the fate of
the American
people.

12/08/98: Why the House must make sure Bubba gets his due punishment12/02/98: Remember when libraries were for expanding the mind!? 11/26/98: When Thanksgiving means more than commercialism11/17/98: To Ken S. --- if you'll only listen11/10/98: What did you expect?11/04/98: Shame on those who don't vote!10/27/98: It's spreading!10/20/98: It ain't over yet10/15/98: Mourning motherhood9/23/98: Sosa and the race card9/23/98: Believable and truthful are two different things9/16/98: Time for a new Amendment!9/08/98: When silence is truly golden8/25/98: Bears and blunders8/25/98: Only consistency about Prez's anti-terrorism policy: its inconsistency8/18/98: Is our 'broken-compass' beyond fixing?8/11/98: Reno's risk8/04/98: When Truth is of the highest odor7/28/98: No way to protect ourselvesagainst a nut's wrath7/22/98: These 'choice' advocates are being demonzied ... by the Left.7/15/98: Will 'neonaticide' become the new buzzword?7/07/98: Urge to mega-merge, stopped in time6/30/98: Why take responsibility ifsomebody else will pay?6/23/98: Blinded by the red, or is it the green? 6/17/98: Flotsam in the wake of romance6/10/98: We have a ways to go in the bilingual war 6/3/98: Tyson's triumph over tragedy 5/28/98: Why Univision's Perenchio is out to hurt his fellow Hispanics 5/20/98: Sometimes Buba actually tells the truth ... as he sees it 5/12/98: Chill-out on the chihuahua and ... Seinfeld5/8/98: The revolution is just about over
4/28/98: Let's face it: both parties are full of hypocrites4/21/98: Legislating equality 4/14/98: One down, many to go4/7/98: Mexican mayhem?3/31/98: Of death and details3/25/98: Americans are unaware of NATO expansion3/18/98: Intellectual-ghettoes in the name of diversity3/11/98: Be careful what you wish for ...3/4/98: The Press' Learning-disability2/25/98: 50 States Are Enough!2/18/98: Casey at the Mat2/11/98: The legal profession's Final Solution2/4/98: Faith and the movies1/28/98: Clinton, Lewinsky, and Politics Vs. Principle1/21/98: Movement on the Abortion Front1/14/98: Clones, Courts, and Contradictions1/7/98: Child custody or child endangerment?12/31/97: Jerry Seinfeld, All-American12/24/97: Affirmative alternatives: New initiatives for equal opportunity are out there
12/17/97: Opening a window of opportunity (a way out of bilingual education for California's Hispanic kids)